Call188866

mountainofdebt · 14 March 2005 at 4:23PM

Is this worth doing please....our average bill is about £60 per quarter ( I know I talk alot!!) including line rental.

Am I right in assming that you are only charged 1p connection fee when you dial a landline in the UK and that the call itself is free?

Also how soon can you start saving when you register with the Company please?

blueghost · 14 March 2005 at 4:47PM

yes regular (01/02) uk numbers are just 1p connection charge for any duration and nothing more. We used to be with telewest and had their talk unlimited for £15.50 a month (plus £10 line rental), they could not give us a clear indication of whether this was good value for the amount of calls we made so we switched to bt, talk talk and 18866 and our phone bill has gone down to about £3 a month plus bt line rental. I think they connect you almost straight away.

It helps to have a phone that will automatically dial the 18866 number for you, but if not adding 5 numbers plus a phone number is worth the saving.

Delta · 14 March 2005 at 4:51PM

Yes it is well worth doing but how much you save depends on who you phone provider is and what service you pay for.

When I first moved over to 18866 I was paying BT for one of their packages that included free calls. To get the most out of the 18866 service I dropped to the basic package whereby you only pay for line rental.

I also checked with BT the cost of mobile phone calls at different times of day week and weekend. 18866 beat them every time.

I'm sure that Martin has written a guide to phone calls highlighting the potential savings to be had.

As a guide I was paying £47 a month direct debit ( and you thought you talked a lot !! ) Under 18866 I am paying around £10 month to them and then my line rental costs. So as you can see from my point of view it is well worth doing.

I seem to remember that you can start using the service almost immediately.

Lastly I don't know if it's a typo but your header has too many 8's the service is 18866.

Hope this helps.

mountainofdebt · 14 March 2005 at 5:04PM

and I tend to hide the phone bill from the husband becasue I know he would lose it big time at the cost ...as its only generally me that uses the phone!

Mobile calls (when we make them) tend to get made on our mobile as we have cross network minutes so am not too worried on that score!

Oh well here goes..in for a penny!

Edinburghlass_2 · 14 March 2005 at 6:47PM

mountainofdebt, as you are with BT, make sure you are on BT Option1 which is the basic line rental of £10.50 per month if paid by dd, £11.50 per month in not. Then sign up with Onetel for their free evening and w/end UK calls for a year with a £20 credit if you sign up this month.

You can immediately sign up with 18866 tonight, and will start on the 0p per minute calls as soon as you sign up.

Read Martin's thread on Onetel here and if you sign up using the links in his post MSE will gain a small amount which allows Martin to keep MSE ad free and donate to charity

mountainofdebt · 14 March 2005 at 8:02PM

Thanks guys..have registered with onetel & call18866 (yes it was a typo!)

Have also registered to pay BT by dd so that's another £3 saving as well!

Can now phone my mum without worrying about the cost!

Delta · 15 March 2005 at 12:33PM

If you use your email address the itemised billing will get sent direct to your mail account as an attachment. Coupled with using your credit card, your other half doesn't ever have to know how much you're spending !!!!
What they don't know doesn't hurt them !!!